Bdnews24.com . Dhaka
Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s ‘two-nation theory’ was quite appropriate for the times prior to creating the two countries — Pakistan and India — in 1947 and its applicability did not wear out even in the case of an independent Bangladesh, said the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami chief, Matiur Rahman Nizami, on Tuesday.
He made the observation at a discussion organised by the party’s Dhaka city chapter at Moghbazar Al-Falah auditorium on the occasion of Victory Day.
Referring to Pakistan’s founding governor general Jinnah, an elitist British-educated lawyer, as ‘Quaid-e-Azam’ meaning ‘father of the nation’, Nizami said, ‘After December 16, 1971, the Indian radio ‘Akashbani’ preached that the ‘two-nation theory’ of Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, had proved wrong.’
‘On the other hand, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the architect of Bangladesh had declared as soon as he set foot in the newly-emerged independent country on January 10, 1972 that Bangladesh was the second largest Muslim state in the world,’ Nizami said.
‘Though discouraged by India and Russia (then USSR), Mujib joined the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Countries) summit in 1974. These establish that ‘Quaid-e-Azam’ Jinnah’s theory was right and Akashbani was wrong,’ the Jamaat chief said.
He reiterated, ‘The hostile attitude demonstrated by India towards Bangladesh through the past 37 years also proves that the two-nation theory was absolutely right.’
‘The Indians do not like us Bangladeshis because we are Muslims,’ Nizami said.
‘The Indian soldiers plundered our country indiscriminately during the War of Independence,’ he said.
‘[They] took away not only the arms and ammunition abandoned by the Pakistani troops, but also stripped our factories down to the nuts and bolts and robbed educational institutions of their laboratory equipment and decamped with even bags of blood from the blood banks,’ Nizami alleged.
Calling Sheikh Mujib ‘a crafty politician’, Nizami said immediately after declaring the four state principles in India, on return home Mujib had joined ranks with the Muslim ummah.
Mujib had started his political career as a Muslim League volunteer, the Jamaat-e-Islami chief said, and along with his close comrade Tajuddin Ahmed had fought championing the two-nation theory.
He continued, ‘Sheikh Hasina is now vowing that they will not make any legislation which might contradict the Qur’an or the Sunnah, which nullifies all their messages on secularism delivered so far!’
Nizami said, ‘Hasina is also claiming that they will go by the provisions of the 1972 constitution, if voted to power this time, which will mean they will recourse to laws that would contradict the Qur’an and the Sunnah!’
He said the country had traversed backward during the emergency rule, for which the grand alliance and its leader Hasina had been responsible.
She now has to bear the brunt of the misrule wrought by the caretaker government, Nizami declared.
Calling upon the audience to make the four-party alliance victor in the forthcoming polls, he said, ‘There is no alternative to the four-party alliance at this critical juncture if you want to see this nation free from all shackles.’
Courtesy: newagebd.com
